Chasing thermals: 6 lessons in life

Are you looking for the thermals?

Talking to dad tonight about his favourite subject and it might just become one mine too…gliding.

I think you’ll find out why as you read!

He loves regailing the story of how he won his Diamond award, which is given to pilots who have flown their glider over 500 kilometres.

But what was beautiful tonight was he shared HOW to travel so far.

It’s in the thermals, the naturally occurring upward spirals in the sky.

The tug plane helps lift him, taking him so far, (around 1500ft) and while he’s being lifted he’s watching out to hit a thermal that will let him detach from the tug, lean into the upward cycle and allow himself to rise higher.

He looks ahead at the sky, noticing the differences in the clouds and the land below.

Fluffy clouds indicate good thermals whereas skinny clouds are a sigh of colder air and not so strong thermals.

The name of the game is to catch as many good thermals as you can…because a glider doesn’t have an engine it naturally descends in between these boosts.

But it’s not vital to fly super high to travel far.

In fact it’s better to not.

Dad wanted to travel over 500k NOT to rise high and land fast.

So he took his time, he maintained a consistent 5-6000 ft (rather than tens of thousands like on other shorter flights)

He kept his eye on the sky and adjusted his route according to what was coming up. He flew west to avoid the cool sea breeze coming in from the east and he looked out for the dark fields and mountains he knew would be more likely to gift him the thermals needed to keep him going.

Detours may have added to his journey, but they kept him in the sky.

Steady and consistent he got where he wanted to be.

He landed at midnight having flown 527k from Portmoak to Haddenham.

Bloody beautiful. My ears were tuned, it was soooo much more than his story I was hearing, but a gazillion metaphors of life.